On Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 June, the opening weekend of the first part of the double-feature IABR–2018+2020–THE MISSING LINK will take place, a celebratory kickoff of five weeks of exhibitions, discussions and exchanges, lectures, workshops, bicycle tours, and conferences about our future in the Delta, the delta of the future.

The exhibition is in the HAKA Building in the Merwe-Vierhavens District in Rotterdam and admission is free during the whole weekend. On Saturday 2 June, from 12 am to 5 pm, the IABR will present a continuous program centering on ‘discovery’: of the different themes of this biennale, and of its surroundings, the M4H District in which the IABR will be working in the coming years.

The 12 am to 5 pm program will include the following events at various locations in the HAKA Building: The three curators of the IABR–2018+2020–THE MISSING LINK, Floris Alkemade, Leo Van Broeck and Joachim Declerck, will present their visions and introduce both this work biennale and the agenda for the coming weeks.

Dutch Government Architect Floris Alkemade will introduceHere Comes the Sun, the new platform he set up in parallel to THE MISSING LINK.

The ‘IABR–BoTu’ team will give a presentation about how, in the coming two years, the IABR together with the City of Rotterdam, housing association Havensteder, and the Delfshaven Corporation will explore the possibilities of Rotterdam’s first energy district, Bospolder-Tussendijken.

Team1010 will present the first results of IABR–Test Site M4H+. Together with local stakeholders the team explored how the area could develop into a nursery of the circular manufacturing industry in the Rottedam region.

Arnoud Molenaar, the City of Rotterdam’s Chief Resilience Officer, will give a talk on the city’s resilience strategy and the part the energy transition plays in it.

The makers of You Are Here will talk about this IABR-exhibition in Brussels and visual artists Caroline Ruijgrok and Wouter Klein Velderman will present the ideas behind their Wunderkammer, which is part of the main exhibition in Rotterdam.

All this will be interspersed with performances by Rotterdam’s city poet Derek Otte and singer-songwriter Judy Blank.

You can join the Urban Guides for a bicycle tour and discover the M4H District: how it once flourished as one of the world’s largest fruit ports, slowly deteriorated and is now, by the joint efforts of pioneering entrepreneurs, the City and the Port of Rotterdam, being developed into a twenty-first-century city harbor: Test Site M4H+.

Right next door to the HAKA Building is Studio Roosegaarde where you can admire the Smog Free Tower.

Annual festival De Dakendagen coincides with the opening weekend of the IABR, which is why the roof of the HAKA is open to the public this weekend as well.

Our caterer Uit Je Eigen Stad, the urban farm of the M4H District that wants to connect people to the food that ends up on their plates every day, will provide food and drinks throughout the day.

On arrival at the location, you will be able to see which event takes place where and at what time.